LIU Post Professor’s iPad Comic Published as a Book Popular app “Dim Sum Warriors” helps teach users Mandarin Chinese and English

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Brookville, N.Y. -- Dim Sum Warriors, a popular iPad comic app that supports the learning of Mandarin Chinese and English, has been published as a graphic novel.

The book, “Dim Sum Warriors, Volume 1 — Enter the Dumpling,” tells the action-packed and humor-filled story of three anthropomorphic Chinese snacks (‘dim sum’ in Cantonese) who must save their homeland from a villainous pot of instant noodles.

The brainchild of Dr. Yen Yen Woo, an associate professor of education at the College of Education, Information and Technology at LIU Post, and her husband Colin Goh, Dim Sum Warriors uses the most American of art forms, the comic book, to introduce readers to an East-West universe where cultural stereotypes are completely subverted with fully-formed characters.

The iPad app, which has been praised by Publishers Weekly, Time magazine and the New York Times, has been downloaded thousands of times by readers from all over the globe. At the tap of a finger, the story can be read in either English or Chinese, supported by audio voice-overs in both languages as well as pronunciation guides. Dim Sum Warriors is also available as a digital comic without the language learning features for e-readers such as Kindle, iBooks, Nook and Kobo.

It is now also a printed paperback graphic novel.

“While the iPad app is innovative in its bilingual functionality, there’s something very satisfying about print books, being able to share them with each other, and seeing a child completely engaged with reading them,” Dr. Woo said. “Readers will be able to see an imaginative universe where Chinese food snacks come alive.”